Mars Helicopter Kicks up Dust Clouds

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News in focus the surface, but it didn’t travel far from its take-off point and the dust cloud phenomenon wasn’t pronounced. On its third flight, the helicopter rose 5 metres and then flew farther, kicking up a cloud from several light-coloured patches on the Martian surface. “A lot more dust comes up at that moment” when the helicopter flies over them, says Lemmon. Ingenuity’s blades spin at more than 2,400 revolutions per minute — a dizzying rate necessary for the helicopter to achieve lift in the Martian atmosphere, which is just 1% the density of Earth’s. It was Ingenuity’s fourth flight, on 30 April, that really intrigued scientists. A video, recorded by Perseverance from a vantage point nearby, shows the helicopter rise, dis- appear from view, and then re-appear while enveloped in an enormous cloud of dust fol- lowing a 133-metre flight. The video confirms that Ingenuity was

flying along with the 3.5-metre-per-second NASA/JPL-CALTECH NASA’s Ingenuity took this image of the Martian landscape during its sixth flight on 22 May. wind, says Håvard Grip, the helicopter’s chief pilot at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasa- dena, California. “The dust was getting carried beneath us,” he says. MARS HELICOPTER KICKS Lemmon plans to compare tracks on the Martian surface left behind by natural dust dev- UP DUST CLOUDS — AND ils with those where the helicopter kicked up the most dust. That will help researchers to better UNEXPECTED SCIENCE understand how winds blowing across Mars can lift dust and spin it into dust devils. The Martian Videos could help researchers to better understand atmosphere is so thin that scientists have had a hard time explaining how so much dust gets natural ‘dust devils’ blowing across the red planet. aloft, says Jackson. “We have to know how that first step in the process works,” he says. By Alexandra Witze thin atmosphere, where tornado-like ‘dust Ingenuity ran into some trouble on its sixth devils’ often form when the Sun heats the air flight, on 22 May; it began wobbling because of ngenuity, NASA’s pint-sized Mars heli- and afternoon winds begin to blow. a glitch in its navigation system, but managed copter, has kicked up some surprising “There’s an unanticipated atmospheric to land safely. On its seventh flight, on 8 June, science on its flights over the red planet. science experiment coming out of this,” says it flew 106 metres with no problem. When whizzing through the Martian air, Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State The helicopter has been wildly successful its blades sometimes stir up a dust cloud University in Tempe. in demonstrating flight on other worlds, says Ithat envelops and travels along with the tiny Ingenuity is what NASA calls a technology Grip. In the future, bigger helicopters could chopper. demonstration, the only goal of which is to travel long distances and scout out areas In several videos of Ingenuity’s flights, show that flight on Mars is possible. So “any- where wheeled vehicles cannot travel. “It’s just planetary scientists have seen dust whirling thing we can learn from it scientifically is icing so clear that this is definitely a way that could beneath the helicopter’s rotors — even when on the cake”, says Brian Jackson, a physicist at be used to explore Mars,” he says. Ingenuity is flying as high as 5 metres above the Boise State University in Idaho who studies Ingenuity will now tag along as Persever- Martian surface. That suggests that dust can Martian dust. ance begins to roll south from its landing get lifted and transported in the thin Martian site. The helicopter will probably make addi- air more easily than researchers had suspected. Bizarre dust clouds tional flights every two weeks or so from now “It’s really cool,” says Mark Lemmon, a Space scientists and amateur image proces- until the end of August, when operations are planetary scientist at the Space Science sors have been analysing images and videos expected to draw to a close. Institute in Boulder, Colorado. of the helicopter that NASA has posted online. Perseverance has been exploring the rocks Mars is a dusty planet, so it’s not surprising The agency’s Perseverance rover carried that make up Jezero Crater’s ancient lake bed. that the helicopter kicks up dust during take- Ingenuity to the surface of Mars in February. Team scientists are in the process of deciding off and landing, much as helicopters on Earth The rover’s job is to roll around Jezero Crater where to drill to collect their first geological do when operating in the desert. Engineers and explore the rocks that were once part of sample — either from the fractured rock that designed Ingenuity to operate with a lot of dust an ancient lake to look for signs of past life. In makes up the crater floor, or from a dune-laden blowing around as it takes off and lands. But sci- April, Ingenuity became the first machine to region nearby. It will be the first in a collection entists are surprised by how the dust interacts achieve powered flight on another planet. It of rock cores that are destined for pickup by with the drone during flight. By watching how has made seven flights so far. future spacecraft, which will fly the material Ingenuity entrains dust as it flies, researchers On the first two flights, Ingenuity kicked up a back to Earth — in the first-ever return of a can better understand the dynamics of Mars’s fair amount of dust as it rose 3–5 metres above sample from Mars.